To ask this question once again: What do car dealers know about the car market anyway?
The Wall Street Journal:
General Motors has bought out about half of its 2,000 Buick dealers nationwide, based on their decision to not sell electric vehicles, according to a company spokesman Wednesday.
Buick is set to be all electric by 2030.
The WSJ:
Dealers who are taking the buyout would give up the Buick franchise and no longer sell the brand, he said. The dealer can continue to sell other GM models, such as Chevrolet or GMC, that often account for a higher percentage of sales.
The Wall Street Journal reported in late 2022 that the automaker planned to offer buyouts to its U.S. Buick dealer network. The move came after the Detroit automaker gave the dealers a choice: Invest at least $300,000 to sell and service electric vehicles, or exit the Buick franchise. The investments would cover EV chargers and worker training, among other initiatives. . . .
Dealers across the country have expressed concerns about leaning in too much on EVs when customers are worried about the range, reliability and high price of these models.
A group of dealers voiced their hesitations about the government’s role in pushing electric vehicles in a letter last month to President Biden, saying they were worried demand wasn’t keeping up with the influx of new models coming to market.
Completely unrelated, Electrek:
Audi says it is now pulling back on what was a fairly ambitious rollout of upcoming electric vehicles in response to what its newly appointed CEO says is the EV “slowdown” and to “avoid burdening” factories and dealers.
“We first looked at what order and density of launches the organization could handle,” CEO Gernot Döllner told Bloomberg. “In the end, we decided to spread it out to not overwhelm the team and the dealerships.”
Audi, which is owned by Volkswagen, had slated 20 new models by 2026, with 10 of those being EVs. Now it will put its focus on new internal combustion and plug-in hybrid models, with some electric ones in there, but the timing will be flexible as to when that will happen.
Focus on traditional cars and hybrids. . . .
Hmm. . . .